Southern State hosts fourth annual Ohio code scholar event
Top left: Students go behind the scenes of robots and animatronics to learn how motors, sensors, code, and creativity turn ideas into living, moving creations. Top right: Retired military officer Tim O’Sullivan provides a live demo and interactive moment using a large-scale prop to a group of students. Bottom left: SSCC’s Dr. Joshua Montgomery (far left) presents an OCS Impact Award to Chancellor Duffey (left center) and Lydia Mihalik (right center) with SSCC’s Amy McClellan (far right). Bottom right: Over 1,300 robots covered the SSCC Central Campus during the event for students to view and enjoy.
By Elizabeth Burkard
Director of Marketing
Southern State Community College
On Monday, May 11, Southern State hosted the fourth annual end-of-year celebration for students, faculty, and staff involved in the Ohio Code Scholar (OCS) project. This event culminated the program’s hard work across Ohio, supporting the Ohio Code Scholar (OCS) with 1,373 students in attendance.
OCS was launched to spark creativity, resilience, and technical skills through computer science. Thanks to support from the state of Ohio and the advocacy of Senator Shane Wilkin, it is not just about coding skills; the program is working to build futures in STEM.
It all started a few years ago with a vision and 75 mini domes, to now a full-on coding crusade across the region. In year one, seven schools joined the adventure against the backdrop of Star Wars and featured student creations of dome projects. It was nothing short of an amazing culmination of student learning and engagement in technology. Year two turned up the dial with nearly 330 battle bots coded to perform battles and navigate obstacle courses from 13 schools. In year three, the program went full droid mode, with over 700 wearable droids built by students from 17 different schools. Currently, this year, over 1,300 mini domes covered the entire campus. These were built by students spanning 30 different schools across the state of Ohio.
Throughout the day, students enjoyed hands-on presentations from world-class presenters as well as words of encouragement from special guests, Chancellor of the Ohio Department of Higher Education Mike Duffey and Ohio’s Director of the Department of Development Lydia Mihalik, followed by an awards ceremony honoring those who placed first through fifth in a variety of categories, including Best of Show.
To learn more about Ohio Code Scholar, please visit https://www.sscc.edu/codescholar/index.shtml.
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